Abstract
In recent years, Malaysia has witnessed an influx of foreign students in the local higher education institutions with the aggressive support from the Malaysian government to build Malaysia as the educational hub within the region. This is in line with Malaysia’s aspiration to be a global education hub by year 2020. Besides the country level policy, the aim of this study is to understand the major drivers that influence foreign students to choose Malaysia and the private HEI as their study destination. Five dimensions were employed in measuring student’s choice of private HEI with a focus on institutional characteristics (cost of education, academic reputation, location, programme and facilities). A sample of 265 respondents was drawn within five private HEIs and the Structural Equation Model (SEM) was utilized in testing the five proposed hypotheses. Based on the findings, all hypotheses were significant except for location. This study gave an idea that institutional characteristics are significantly important in measuring foreign students’ choice of Malaysian private HEI.
Highlights
In many developed countries, the international trade in educational services is a major source of income; it has become a multi-billion dollar business (Cheung, Yuen, Yuen, & Cheng, 2011)
The findings show that cost of education has a significant influence on students’ choice of Malaysian private HEI this relationship is negative
This study has demonstrated that institutional characteristics namely cost of education, academic reputation, programme and facilities are significantly important in measuring foreign students’ choice of Malaysian private HEI
Summary
The international trade in educational services is a major source of income; it has become a multi-billion dollar business (Cheung, Yuen, Yuen, & Cheng, 2011). Given the benefits to individual higher education institutions, and the economic impact on the nation at large, there is an on-going global race for international enrolment of students, in which Malaysia has entered. By the 1990s, Malaysia was among the top countries with students studying in the USA, the UK and Australia. The volatile foreign currency exchange and the escalation of overseas education costs meant that the country’s annual overseas education expenses were rising. Another contributory factor was the Asian Financial Crisis which started in Thailand in July 1996 and moved to the rest of Asia
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
